


if they only understood, he'd give it all up if he only could

by shannonymous



Series: New Again [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, FTM Tony, M/M, Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M, Tony's an alcoholic, Trans Character, bucky silently laughs at them, for like a second, in a flashback, so it doesnt really count but yeah, steve is bad at words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:45:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4119010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shannonymous/pseuds/shannonymous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The breaking point in Tony's problem (because addiction spreads like poisoned ink, seeping into everything it touches).</p>
            </blockquote>





	if they only understood, he'd give it all up if he only could

**Author's Note:**

> more tony!centric shit while I put off writing the long story for this verse

It’s been the better part of two hours and Steve still hasn’t come inside.

All weather stations are in agreement: the snow would start but wouldn’t stop for hours, blanketing the city and smothering the hurry-real-fast lifestyle under nearly a foot. It might go on for days: “They might shut the state down,” Tony had said gleefully, guided inside out of the cold on the arms of doting boyfriends.  That was last night, before the plows stopped clearing minor roads and there was a call to stay indoors. Life seemed to pause, hesitant under the safety of that cold, heavy cloak.

 Steve is the type to shy away from the chill; he tends to overdress, layering clothes and suffering to sweat in them. He wakes when Tony inevitably steals the covers in bed, and he goes pale at the hint of a cold shower in the morning. A preferential night entails drinking cups of hot chocolate while bundled up in sweats, toes tucked under Tony’s thigh with Bucky’s arm slung across his chest.

He isn’t the type to dig in his heels; Steve Rogers adapts, fits himself into spaces in which he could never shoulder his way— but it isn’t like him to give up. It isn’t like him to walk away.

The thought settles uncomfortably with Bucky—that this man he knows so well is strange to him. He could list off favorite foods, recite the schedule Steve keeps on a daily basis; if you gave him a chart, he could mark off every erogenous zone on the man’s body and rank them from “least sensitive” to “do not touch until the last minute.”

So yeah, Steve giving up on Tony in the middle of a disagreement? Unsettling.  

Tony, on the other hand, doesn’t bother with the thought of Steve walking out. Doesn’t think of the man sitting out in the cold. He sits behind the bar, sour, three fingers of scotch taunting him from its place in front of him.

 He doesn’t touch it.

Instead, he distracts himself by watching Bucky distract himself with a book. Tucked into the bend of the couch, safe where the two pieces meet against the wall, Bucky sits with a book in his lap and eyes glued to the page. He’s been meaning to catch up with history, and even though Tony swindled Steve into using the tablets, Bucky prefers the familiarity (a luxury he does not often get) of the tangible thing.

In the beginning, Stark had no idea of how to integrate the asset; he couldn’t tell what subjects would and would not trigger sleeping memories capable of absolute ruin when awakened. Steve was easier, casually burning through pop-culture in true American fashion. Bucky needed something else, and in him Tony saw enough of himself to spend his off-days with the other—fuck, he misses that; getting drunk and watching movies Steve would hate, buying books on a whim because he read it years ago and _you ‘d like this one_.

But of course, they would share the same brand of interest, and Tony’s book-buying became less whimsical and all the more purposeful. Bucky showed immediate interest in the beat movement (one thing Tony can’t get behind; why be angry you have nothing to be angry about?), and is working through Kerouac with a reverent dedication. Though Tony would spend hours scrolling through titles, buying ungodly numbers of books online, he still enjoyed the simple action of searching up and down the aisles of a shop— he often completes tasks with relentless fervor, and though making Bucky happy isn’t a task, he works for it like any other achievement.  

And so it weighs heavy on him to watch the man diminished to this sullen guilt, holding a hard copy of _On The Road_ and staring down at the open pages, not reading one word.

Tony wants to carry that hurt inside of him, secret—not let it out, and sit helpless to watch it spread seeking, toxic tendrils into the bond he shares with these two men. He can’t let his own wildly twisting insecurities weaken an already crumbling foundation. His fingers search for something to hold onto and upon finding the tumbler of scotch, clench into a tight fist.

He opens his mouth to say something, _anything, Tony, look at what you’re doing again_ , but Bucky breaks the silence first.

“I wasn’t choosing sides,” he says and his voice is low, like he’d rather not commit to what he’s proposing. Tony snorts in the back of his throat, but doesn’t look up so he can hide how his face screws up with an ugly, tight smile. His expression is still leery as he picks the glass from the bar—he raises the glass to his mouth in an aborted move, hand stuttering halfway there. He sets it back down.

“Sure felt like it,” he differs, petulant. The ice in his glass is melting, rings of water pooled at the surface. He can’t look away from it; doesn’t dare to. The asset wants to roll his eyes, but this is delicate.

“I’m not out there with him,” Bucky says. “I stayed with you. He’s worried, and I am too.”

Tony laughs, short and deprecating. They hate that laugh, and they hate whatever follows it. This time is no different.

“Cap is more worried about his image than my liver, babe. You don’t see him taking drinks out of my hand here, do you?” Tony says this, but he only half-means it; Bucky listens and half-believes it, if only for a moment.

“This is our space,” he says. “He wouldn’ta done that to you here, but out there? You can’t get rip-roarin’ drunk every time we go out and expect Steve to watch you drink yourself into an early grave.” It feels like the wrong thing to say, sour on his tongue, because Steve would. If Tony wanted it, they would give it to him; there are awful parts of them all, but they are poisons that do not make them unlovable.

“It ain't fair to him,” Bucky continues, tone going soft, “It ain't fair to us.”

All at once, Tony is alone in the dark. Panic spikes sharp and unpleasant in his chest and he aches to sooth it away. It’s an easy life without dysphoria and the accompanying anxiety; it’s even easier to drown them into silence with half a fifth.    

He smiles, sardonic.

“Do you want me to start crying while I’m getting dicked down by two super soldiers, because I can tell you from experience, it’s a mood killer,” and his voice is positively dripping with defensive sarcasm. 

Bucky doesn’t respond, and so Tony barrels on.

“I like being able to forget that my bits don’t match who I am, even with the surgeries and the hormones and the fucking _pumps_. I like forgetting to hate myself first thing in the morning. I like that I don’t hurt--all the fucking time,” Tony’s voice stutters on a half-sob, and to his horror, his eyes are wet.

 “I want to forget the person I had to be. The person they forced me to be, who I never was. That front I had to put on. I like being able to forget-- her, and focus on what I need to do for myself, not everything I have to do just to be me. I just-- I want to feel right, Buck.”

There’s a moment between them. Bucky’s fingers stroke absently at the corner of a page.

“We don’t do that for you?” he asks, and Tony feels so _stupid_ when it clicks.

“Oh,” he says limply. “Oh—“

_Steve ruts between Tony’s thighs, cock buried deep in tight heat and two fingers sunken into the slick boycunt, working his palm against the swell of Tony’s prick. He’s wrung out two orgasms already and Tony is absolutely sloppy beneath him, mouth red and eyes bleary. His mouth finds the matching scars on the man’s chest, tongue laving over the uneven skin and teeth catching on raised tissue. He feels every muscle tense under him._

_“No, no,” Steve coaxes, “You’re doing so good, Tony, being such a good boy for me.” He presses tentative kisses to Tony’s collarbone, hips rolling steadily slow. “Can I make you come again?” he asks, leaving a bitemark where it will be visible for days after, marking clear territory for those who see it (in fact, he has a tendency to flash secretive, smug smiles at those whose gazes linger enough)._

_“Steve,” Tony almost protests, but his next words are muffled on Steve’s mouth as the man crowds in to kiss him stupid. The shared breath between them is warm, lips sticky in the humidity._  

_Steve's voice is heavy when he asks, "Green?" He pulls back to suckle at Tony’s lower lip, hot and swollen raw, “I’ll stop if you want me to. Do you want me to stop, Tony?” In moving away, he leaves Tony feeling empty and cold, and hands fumble to grasp at his hips._

_“No,” the other finds himself saying, and isn’t lying. “Green. Don’t stop.”_

  _Steve spends the next half hour with his mouth on Tony’s prick, because his favorite place to show his reverent love is on his knees._

“I’ll go,” Bucky’s words pull Tony from his headspace, and the man stands, leaving the book in his place. “I’ll talk to him.”

_They watch him knot his bowtie in the mirror, two soldiers over his shoulder in the reflection. He flashes a grin, turning to pluck his glass from its place beside him. It leaves a wet ring of condensation as proof that it was there._

_Steve’s face is sullen behind him, eyes tracking the movement of glass to hand, rim to mouth, liquor to taste._

_“Whatcha lookin’ so sharp for?” Bucky asks when it becomes apparent that Steve isn’t going to._

_“Party thing,” comes the reply, “You know how it is, making appearances, smiling for the cameras and the people you couldn’t care less about. But there will be booze, and they’re expecting me. We don’t have anything to do tonight, might as well shake some hands and sign some contracts.” He sees their hesitation and easily misjudges. “You don’t need to come. I’m a big boy, you don’t have to hold my hand.”_

_Steve’s face doesn’t change as he says, “You shouldn’t go out in this weather. Last time we went out, you said we’d skip the next one. Stay in.”_

_“That, I do not recall,” he says matter-of-factly, tilting his glass towards his boyfriends with the softest clink of ice. It doesn't come as a surprise; the last bash ended with Steve plucking a half-gone martini from a protesting, and quite drunk, Tony Stark._

_“Well, maybe if you showed up sober once in a while, you’d remember.”_

_The hard lines of Steve’s face immediately soften and the other men recognize the shame flittering there uncertainly, features going slack with despondent apology. Tony’s jaw clenches tight._

_“I’m sorry—“ Steve starts, but the other man is already moving past him, “Tony, please, I didn’t mean—“_

_“I know exactly what you meant,” it’s said with a sneer soothed away with a sip of scotch. There was venom in those words, and he can feel the bitter bite of it crawling up his spine. It spreads into the small space under his chest, warm and comforting. Now standing at the bar, Tony’s finds himself at a loss and his fingers drum against the polished wood with absent-minded anxiety._

_Bucky curls a hand around Steve’s wrist, “He didn’t mean it like that, but you know damn well that he ain’t wrong.”_

_“Et tu, Barnes?”_

_“Tony,” and this is pleading, “I love you, and I can’t—“ Steve  feels the words slip away, because they’re never enough. It’s the sound of a bottle cracked open, and the familiar twist and splash of Tony getting worked up. He opens the glass doors, windows, really, and walks out into the quiet world of a snow storm._

“No,” Tony heaves a sigh, waving Bucky down. “I’ll go. This is my fault.”

Bucky says, “I think you’re both stupid,” but he settles back into the couch, cradling Kerouac on his lap with guarded patience. “And don’t be an asshole,” he adds, calling out to Tony’s back.

The door slides open effortlessly, but they’re heavier somehow, an obstacle he would rather turn away from.  Steve has brushed the snow from a chair, sitting under the awning. Flakes dust his hair, and his nose is red, but his eyes are bright and clear when he glances over to see Tony approaching.

“Shoulda put a jacket on,” Tony jokes lamely, motioning at the Canada Goose coat Steve wears, the one he adamantly refused on the principle of price. His fingers, numb from the cold, go to unzip his jacket and guilt tugs hard at Tony’s ribcage.

“Don’t,” he says, coming over to cover Steve’s hand with his own. He can feel the chill, and thinks it goes down to the bone. “We won’t be out here long.”

“I don’t want to come inside,” is the response, and _who’s the child now?_ But he knows this look, that haunted, gaunt stretch of a handsome face, and swallows his jokes. He can’t laugh this away and ride Steve to forgiveness like he can with Bucky.

Tony cups that angled jaw, lets his fingers trail over the cold skin and tense muscle. It loosens by a fraction at his touch, Steve’s eyes going half-lidded as he turns his face into a rough palm.

“I lost him once. I almost lost you. I’m not letting it happen,” Steve murmurs into the safety of muffled sound. “I’m not losing you to you.”

“You wont.”

Steve huffs once, quick and frustrated as he turns his head, “I’m not your mother, but Tony, if you keep—“

“I’ll stop.”

“Drinking like you do—what?”

There’s a smile, ghosted with the hint of everything they hate to see so open on his face, but it’s true, and there is no waver to Tony’s voice when he says, “I’ll slow down, at the very least. It’s been a close friend for a long time, and I’ll need you to understand if I fuck up. But it isn’t just me anymore, and I’m—sorry. I am.” He clears his throat. “So no more tantrums, all right? I think we scared the kids.”

“No more fighting,” Steve corrects with a promise, and his face falls into something like gratification. Hopeful, open, heartbreaking gratitude. Tony leans in to kiss away the expression, breath misting in clouds between their mouths.

**Author's Note:**

> I DIDNT EVEN WRITE A PROPER ENDING sorry not sorry (: 
> 
> It's so hard to write this verse cause no one LIKES it, I'm going back to Destiel


End file.
